Now that i think of it, you must have mentiond about the tripod and taking the pix yourself KD, good shots all though and yes, maybe it was only '29' but i'm guessing yer not far off from finding out...so have a bunch of fun when you tag one that size. I've come close to '29' i think but big browns are few and far between around me. I've got a not very good pic of one from a couple of years ago if you want to have a look.
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
I always like to see pictures of big fish! I certainly would like a look.Originally Posted by MontanaMoose
Let me know if you do. I will be over in your neck of the woods in a couple weeks floating the SF Snake. Selfishly I am hoping the big bugs are a little late this year.
It looks like they will be! You can get pretty up to the minute reports on jimmysflyshop.com. They usually report every couple of days during the summer and they are "predicting" it should happen in the next week or so. You might hit it just right.
Get Em!
A little reprieve from the usual reports
Well this holiday weekend I got to fish with my favorite fishing buddies, my oldest boy and his little sister. We spent the weekend at the family retreat and did a lot of relaxing. One evening while we had nothing else going on I took the kids to the pond down the road not knowing what to expect. Well it turns out it is loaded with some hungry little crappies. And by little I mean little. The biggest were 5-6 inches. The kids had a great time none the less.
My 3 year old boy is a pro at this already and landed 15 of these little buggers in our short outing all by himself.
My little princess has actually never caught a fish before, so this was her first ever! A proud moment for a dad that loves to fish, but she wasn't too sure what to do with the wiggly thing and was almost glad to see me release it back into the pond.
One fish I noticed seem to be giving my boy a little more of a tussle than the others, but I was busy helping my daughter get her line cast back out and didn't give it much thought until he beached a little Smallmouth. The only one of the day but he sure thought it was great.
You gotta love fishing with kids.
Hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th.
A fairly big fish...
Here you go, the brown i mentioned...about 26"...that's a 4" #4 marabou leech stuck in its lip.... the other pic is my last decent sized steel...back in October way up the North Umpqua. I'm pretty much sticking with big dries for steel right now, and though it doesn't happen often i've hooked them up to about 35" (not landed) and i'm always excited at the possibility of that happening again (or bigger) so i keep trying all during the summer run.
Wow, nice pix of the kids with fish KD ! You gotta be a proud papa for sure !
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
Last edited by MontanaMoose; 07-07-2010 at 05:37 AM.
cool stuff! your buddies look to be having a grand time! i've got to get my granddaughter to a pond soon.
"There's more B.S. in fly fishing than there is in a Kansas feedlot." Lefty Kreh
I can't say about fly fishing but there's a lot of feed lots in Kansas.
Wes' Pattern Book
http://www.flypatternbook.net
Thanks guys.
Those are some very nice fish MM, thanks for posting them. I would like to give those big steelhead a try sometime on a dry fly. Now that sounds fun!
I made it back out to the river in the morning again for the first time since last Thursday. I have missed it but the fish are still hungry. I landed 6 more healthy browns, all cookie cutter 18-19 inchers. Can't complain about that! I fear my reports are getting rather monotonous. It seems I always have the same story to tell, but as long as it involves catching and not getting skunked then I won't worry too much about it.
There was one difference today from my previous outings. There was a nice little BWO hatch at 7:30am. I have had such good luck with midges in the mornings, and this morning when I got out of the truck I noticed clouds of midges buzzing around so I just slipped on the old reliable patterns and went to work. After fishing to several rising fish and getting no reaction whatsoever I was getting the hint. These fish weren't eating midges. I still hadn't seen anything else on the water but when I am getting refusals, and I can't see what they are eating my standby pattern is a CDC Spinner. I tied one on and a couple casts later was tied into this guy.
After sending that fish on his way I finally noticed a smattering of BWO duns floating down river. Not a thick hatch, but enough to get the fish up on them and enough to make it pretty easy pickings. I quickly switched over to my favorite Sparkle Dun pattern and things started to pick up.
Release me
Nice spots
Four more fish came to the net and I headed back down river to the truck where my father in law was working a deep run that always holds a lot of fish. He had been having some success with midges back down here. I stood up on the bank and watched him work some feeders on the bank closest to me. Then he discovered why he was having no luck with those feeders. No fly. It must have popped off and he finally noticed. I guess that can happen when you are fishing itty bitty midges. I noticed quite a few BWO's floating down the feeding lane as well so as my father in law called it a day I hopped down the bank for a quick try at those fish with my Sparkle Dun. On the first drift it was submarined. I could see this was another nice fish and it tried multiple times to take me under the big boulder I was standing on. Finally I brought the last fish of the morning to the net. Another 19 inch beauty. I would have guessed it bigger as I was fighting it but I will take it.
Another AM on the river
Day to day things are changing a bit here. Warmer weather is meaning there are more mayflies hatching early in the day along with the usual midges. Making it a little more difficult on occasion to tell exactly what the fish are feeding on. Two days ago I couldn't get a fish to sniff my midge patterns but they were all over the BWO Sparkle Dun. Today was the opposite story. They gobbled up the Harrops Transitional Midge and ignored the sparkle dun. I will leave you with this pic of the first fish of the morning.
Ben, well done, brother. It's good to see you getting out, especially since I'm unable to. Those are some great fish and photos and kudos to you for the continuing reports. Monotonous? I think not, your assessment is spot on. Keep 'em coming.
Kelly.
Tight Lines,
Kelly.
"There will be days when the fishing is better than one's most optimistic forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home."
Roderick Haig-Brown, "Fisherman's Spring"
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